<div dir="ltr">I have family members that got tablets in the last year or so and almost never touch their laptops anymore. Between their tablet and their smartphone, they have no need for the PC.<br><div><br></div><div>

For people who are only into casual use of their computers - media consumption, casual games, social networking, etc. - the PC is already dead.<br>

</div><div><br>The reason tablets and smartphones are able to be so useful is because of the cloud. For a lot of the apps - the bulk of the work is done somewhere else - the media is stored online and streamed to the device (Pandora, YouTube, Netflix) for example.<br>

<br>I think the next big thing for mobile devices will be more a VNC type model - something like OnLive ( <a href="http://onlive.com" target="_blank">onlive.com</a> ) or CloudOn ( <a href="http://cloudon.com" target="_blank">cloudon.com</a> )... Yes, OnLive failed at first, and may not ever really recover - but that wasn't because the model was bad, it was because of mismanagement.<br>

<br>But the idea of having your mobile device basically serve as a thin client to a much more powerful computer - I think that's going to be one of the things that makes the traditional PC obsolete. If I can carry a $50 device in my pocket, and pay... idk... $50 a year? ... to have access to a portion of a supercomputer... and the interface works with my hardware.... Why wouldn't I do that?<br>

</div><div><br></div><div>Yes, there are security issues - but for the vast majority of users... If the broadband is there, why not use it?</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><font size="4"><i><span style="font-family:garamond,serif">-</span><font style="font-family:garamond,serif"> Chad W. Smith</font></i></font><div>